ABSTRACT

This study was designed to access the dietary habits, food security status and anthropometric status of male undergraduates attending Michael Okpara University of Agriculture. This study employed a descriptive cross-sectional study to selected 424 respondents using a multi-stage sampling technique. Ethical approval and informed consent was obtained from an accredited ethics institution and respondents respectively. A structured questionnaire was used to obtain information on the respondents’ relevant characteristics. Household food insecurity access scale and body mass index reference point were used to categorize their food security and anthropometric status respectively. All analysis (descriptive and inferential statistics) were obtained using IBM SPSS. Results on sociodemographic characteristics revealed the respondents were predominantly between 18-21 (30.0%) and 22-25 (48.6%) years old. Almost all ofthem are single (98.1%) with 1.9% of them married. More than a quarter (25.2%) of the respondents earned between N21,000 to 30,000. Meal was skipped by 40.3% of the respondents. Skipped meals were mainly breakfast (14.9%) and lunch (18.1%). Meals were skipped due to lack of time (13.2%), food unavailability (11.3%) or no appetite (9.4%). Breakfast (58.0%), lunch (34.7%) and dinner (80.7%) meals were prepared and consumed in the home by a good number of the respondents. Results showed that more than half(57.8%) acknowledged the changes in their eating habits since the start oftheir university education. The key factors affecting food consumption are taste (95.0%), appearance of food (80.9%), nutritive value of food (79.2%), texture (74.1%) and health reasons (76.4%). Results on anthropometric status revealed that more than half (55.2%) of the subjects had normal body mass index status while 30.4% and 8.3% were overweight and obese respectively. Severe, moderate and mild food insecurity was reported in 46.5%, 29.0% and 8.0% of the respondents. Only 16.5% of the respondents were food secure. Eating out frequency was positively associated with food security score (r = 0.15**; p = 0.00) and body mass index (r = 0.14“; p = 0.004). Nutrition advocacy to improve access to healthy and affordable foods within the university environment and behaviour change communication to assist them make informed choices will help improve their food security and dietary habits.